The present invention relates to an apparatus for supporting a pickup arm on a disc or record player, and more particularly relates to improvement in supporting and adjusting structures for a pickup arm assembly on audio and/or video disc players of the linear tracking type.
In the conventional disc player of the type utilizing a linear tracking arm, a servo-driven carriage for supporting the pickup arm assembly is movable on and along a track in a direction normal to the radial direction of a turn table to compensate deviation of the pickup arm from true tangency to a record groove to be reproduced. The player is further provided with, among other elements, a pickup arm lifting mechanism, a pickup arm offset angle detecting mechanism, a gimbal support mechanism and other elements arranged on the carriage. These mechanisms are, in general, separated from each other and are operatively coupled to each other via a number of mechanical connecting elements such as links. As a result of the large number of connecting elements the structure is quite complicated and is relatively large. In addition, the structure tends to cause generation of noisy mechanical vibration which seriously reduces the reproduction quality of the disk player. Further, the complicate connecting structure often lowers the operative reliability of the entire mechanism. Finally, the separate arrangement of the mechanisms makes it very difficult to properly adjust the mechanisms after replacement of any mechanical part or parts.